- Remember last year when Red (Taylor’s Version) dropped and everyone was really excited that Taylor Swift had rerecorded her amazing album—making it even better in the process—in order to reclaim ownership of her music? As I read this piece on the finally-filed anti-voucher lawsuit, I kinda feel like this is the Ohio edublob’s lame, eye-roll inducing effort to imitate her. Unfortunately for them, retreading settled case law on the constitutionality of vouchers is a far cry from Swift’s awesome bops. So this is cringe inducing instead of exciting. (Cleveland.com, 1/4/22) Further coverage of the presser that accompanied the filing, including some choice reaction from Fordham’s Chad Aldis, can be found in Gongwer… (Gongwer Ohio, 1/4/22) …the Dayton Daily News… (Dayton Daily News, 1/4/22) …and The Center Square. (The Center Square, 1/4/21)
- An apropos follow up to the foregoing pieces is this purported summary of the Academic Distress Commission saga, now at a turning point more than six years after the passage of HB 70. I say purported because it includes a big whopping revisionist talking point right near the top (“Academic distress commissions…have run school districts in Youngstown since 2016, Lorain since 2017 and East Cleveland since 2018 due to low grades on state report cards. Yet in that time, the districts’ grades never improved.”). There were in fact numerous signs of improvement over the years—covered by Cleveland.com in fact—including Lorain City Schools earning its highest report card grade in more than a decade under CEO David Hardy. But that doesn’t really matter now. While our own Aaron Churchill is quoted, sensibly and realistically, in the piece regarding the aforementioned turning point (“I question whether Youngstown is really challenging the system and producing a sense of urgency.”), the revised reality of the past is quickly solidifying—as I predicted some time ago—and so will the current reality I expect. (Cleveland.com, 1/4/22)
- As the calendar prepared to turn, interim state superintendent Stephanie Siddens had some stuff to say in legislative testimony. In publishing their coverage of that testimony earlier this week, the OCJ chose to focus on what they term “grim” student enrollment numbers among her many important points of discussion. (Ohio Capital Journal, 1/3/22)
- On the upside, Ohio teachers union president Scott DiMauro says the teachers are sticking around, despite what you may have heard in the news. Yay. (Ohio Schools Magazine Dec/Jan edition, 1/3/22)
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